Much is made of Hamas’ desire to kill Israelis, yet so often the media takes it for granted that Israel has been killing Palestinians for decades.
Reuters reported that 10 Palestinians had been killed, while Al Jazeera put the number at 12.
As with reports coming from Iraq, news reports usually insist those who were killed were gunmen. The rationale will likely be that Hamas gunmen were firing their guns into Israeli towns.
The right wing’s favourite psychopath is worried about Israel, and inhabiting his make believe world of urgency that requires the destruction of Iran.
Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons, the US’s former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
Worse still, according to Ambassador Bolton, the Bush administration does not recognize the urgency of the hour and that the options are now limited to only the possibility of regime change from within or a last-resort military intervention, and it is still clinging to the dangerous and misguided belief that sanctions can be effective.
As a consequence, Bolton said he was “very worried” about the well-being of Israel. If he were in Israel’s predicament, he said, “I’d be pushing the US very hard. I am pushing the US [administration] very hard, from the outside, in Washington.”
One wonders if Bolton really believes this garbage or that he is simply so bloodthirsty that he is willing to clutch to any justification for his favourite past time – bashing Muslims.
Speaking of Islamophobes and haters of humanity, Anne Coulter had been quiet for a while, but decided to crawl out from her cave to remind the world what a dismal piece of work she is.
Coulter is on Hardball today saying that our problem in Iraq is because we haven’t killed enough civilians. Really.
“We need to be less concerned about civilian casualties…we bombed more people in Hamburg in two days … I’d rather have their civilians die than our civilians… we should kill their people.”
You know, I often hear about how the liberals are sending the wrong message to the enemy. Yet, they let this unhinged homicidal maniac on television to spew this toxic swill.
T-Rex didn’t pull any punches, especially regarding Coulter’s habit of appearing on daytime shows wearing the same skimpy black cocktail dress.
Well, stellar book sales or not, it’s time for Ann to go buy herself a new goddamn dress. That tired old black number is sticking to the chair. God forbid someone should turn a black-light on it. Probably has more DNA encrusted in its poly-cotton folds than is on file at the entire Human Genome Project.
I guess she thinks she’s peddling a good dose of sex with her sewage but really it looks more like necrophelia.
Even with the so called ‘Al Qaeda’ members having fled the scene, US forces proceeded to destroy yet another Iraqi village regardless.
One week after American forces mounted their assault on insurgent strongholds in western Baquba, at least half of the estimated 300 to 500 fighters who were there have escaped or are still at large, the colonel who is leading the attack said Monday.
It’s predictable that the media, which has been kept a safe distance from operations, will report exactly what they have being told to report.
Still, Operation Arrowhead Ripper has thus far had a very successful media run. Little has been discussed beyond the occasional ‘success’. We learn nothing, and they will tell us nothing that doesn’t immediately jar as an obvious propaganda piece. One press-release from the MNF claims that troops have discovered ‘Al Qaeda’ prisons, torture chambers, execution houses. Its claims are broadly reflected in much of the coverage, with some variations and bagatelles. Who knows, it may even contain some truth: whatever combination of groups there are running the area, I daresay they impose some fairly strict discipline, up to and including executions. However, the idea is seriously being offered that the US military are liberating Iraqis from imprisonment, torture and death. Why don’t they simply call it Operation Irony Death?
With little to gain strategically, the purpose of the assault was to send a clear message to those daring to resist the occupation forces.
However, bear in mind the scale of this operation: as in other city-assaults, they have sealed the place off and entered with all guns blazing and bombers tearing up the streets. This is far from over, and if they seriously intend to keep the city under SIIC control, then I would anticipate an escalation. Don’t expect a serious body count or even estimate until some of the humanitarian agencies get a look in there. I don’t think there were many more than a dozen civilian deaths reported by the embedded media in Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury, (and remember, all non-embedded reporters are being kept out of Baqubah right now), but the first post-bombing estimate was that 800up to 6,000 deaths. It would have been much higher had most of the population not been driven out into the deserts to seek the canvas hospitality of any aid organisation that would provide it. And, as you know, that city has been under forced labour servitude, biometric lockdown, and round-the-clock military rule ever since. They constructed a huge torture regime in Camp Mercury on the outskirts of the city, where 82nd Airborne, describing themselves as Murderous Maniacs, would attack and torture their hostages: they called it “fucking” them.
It looks as though the investigation into corruption surrounding the dealings of BAE Systems is about to proceed.
The US Department of Justice has launched an inquiry into British arms manufacturer BAE Systems’ compliance with anti-corruption laws, including those regarding lucrative Saudi contracts, BAE revealed on Tuesday.
The question remains, will the ties to Cheney see the light of day?
One consequence of those shock waves is that Vice President Dick Cheney, according to Washington insiders, is in deep trouble with his London friends. Cheney, the sources report, was the guarantor that the story of the $80-100 billion fund would never see the light of day. And, while the American and British establishment press have attempted to bury the scandal, either through blacking it out altogether, or focusing attention on tertiary features, like the relatively small flow of cash to Prince Bandar, the EIR revelations have saturated the U.S. Congress and have been picked up around the world.
The next chapter is now being written in the scandal of the century, and that could mean the political doom of Dick Cheney. Ironically, it could come at the hands of his own political boosters in the City of London, rather than from Congressional Democrats, who remain divided on the issue of Cheney’s impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. Ultimately, the real powers behind the throne in London have very low tolerance for failure.
Given that Cheney has become even more toxic than normal, the timing of this could hardly be better worse for him.
Much is being made of the support Israel, the West and pliant Arab regimes are giving to Fatah and Abbas. The problem with this arrangement is that it is totally unsustainable.
The Arab regimes are not so naive as to buy into the notion that Hamas can be excluded from Palestinian political life — it is the elected government, and speaks for close to half of the Palestinian population. In the last Palestinian election, it thrashed Fatah not only in Gaza, but also in most of the major West Bank towns and cities. While rallying against its armed takeover in Gaza, what the Arabs are demanding is that Hamas recognize the authority of President Abbas (which, by the way, Hamas has done, even since taking power in Gaza — it is Abbas’s side that has the greater problem recognizing the legitimacy and authority of Hamas as an elected government). The Arabs are making very clear that their goal is to revive the Mecca Agreement that brought Hamas and Fatah together in a unity government. That remains a plausible goal, not least because Hamas has indicated a similar goal — although the politicking will be tough and it is unlikely that the same Fatah warlords who, with the backing of the U.S., refused to submit to the unity agreement last time would do so this time. Still, the basic message of the Arabs is that Hamas must be brought back within the umbrella of Palestinian unity; they know it can’t be defeated through isolation and repression.
This position is of course utterly rejected by Israel and the West. The last thing they want to see is unity between Hamas and Fatah.
The U.S. and Israel, of course, insist that Hamas must be isolated and that there can be no revival of the Mecca agreement. At U.S. prodding, Israel has agreed to release some of the Palestinian Authority finances it has withheld, and Prime Minister Olmert says he’ll release some 250 Fatah prisoners although none with “blood on their hands” — i.e. no Marwan Barghouti, the only Fatah leader capable of reversing the movement’s precipitous decline.
Ultimately, the matter comes down to the same issues that have always plagued the Arab/Israeli conflict. No amount of support from Israel and the West is going to make this issue go away without being resolved.
And even as the Arab states demand that Israel begin moving towards final-status negotiations with Abbas based on a return to 1967 borders, Olmert has signaled he has no interest in even opening such talks any time soon.
So, the latest U.S. plan is on a familiar hiding to nothing, precisely because it fails to address the basic problem: Hamas defeated Fatah because Fatah had proved itself unable to end the occupation; the Arab regimes and the Fatah leaders know that the only way they can be revived and strengthened is for Fatah’s path of engagement with the West and Israel to show results, i.e. concrete steps to end the occupation; but Israel has no intention of taking steps now to end its occupation of the West Bank — together with the U.S., it is essentially expecting Abbas and Fatah to police the status quo. Which is what got them into trouble in the first place.
Let’s just say that the best thing Hamas has going for it right now is the limits on how far the American and Israelis are prepared to go in addressing Palestinian national rights.
While the West will simply turn a blind eye to Gaza, Israel will turn the territory into an even greater cesspool of suffering and oppression, and the remaining Palestinians Bantustans in the West Bank will continue to shrink.
The Gaza Strip is “an independent state” just like any prison cell is: a hermetically sealed cage, overpopulated by 1.3 million people; no sea port or airport; no control over its own borders, waters, or airspace; even its population database, not to mention water, food, electricity, gasoline, and medical equipment, are all strictly controlled by Israel.And as for the West Bank, it’s enough to look at its recent map prepared by the UN to understand why no Palestinian state can emerge there: notice how the small area was pulverized into numerous tiny cages for humans, separated by Israeli settlements, fences, roadblocks, and checkpoints. Cages for non-Jewish humans only, mind you; Jews move around freely in their (whose?) land.
So the question that remains is, what does Israel and the West hope to gain by propping up Fatah?
In a matter of days, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned from an unreliable foe to a precious friend. All of a sudden the boycott against the Palestinians was lifted, Israel unfroze Palestinian tax money, and Abu Mazen was promised a generous package of Israeli gestures and invited to a leaders’ summit.
And why does Abbas suddenly deserve all that? As a reward for his most impressive success: namely, losing Gaza to Hamas forces. Fatah’s defeat in Gaza was allegedly unexpected; Israel and the U.S. wanted to help Abu Mazen but their aid came too little or to late, and Israel finally realized that it was time to save the Palestinian non-Islamist national movement by making peace with its moderate leader. And we are supposed to believe all that.
We have seen this situation before, in the early 1990s. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yassir Arafat just as the latter was about to end his career as an irrelevant old leader enjoying a good life in Tunisian exile. Arafat was fighting for his survival; Israel knew it very well. Leaders just about to be forgotten, or, as in Abbas’ case, just about to be thrown out of the window of the 15th floor, are excellent partners for colonialist regimes.
That’s precisely what Israel is looking for in the West Bank: a ruthless, weak, and hated partner, fighting against its own people for survival and relying on Israel rather than facing it.
All these measures have just one objective in common: strengthening the Fatah militia and enabling it to crush any opposition. Fatah’s hysteria should now turn it into an Israeli proxy, dependent on Israel to survive, serving Israel’s interests, and using ever more violence against the Palestinian opposition, which happened to win the democratic elections. Forget removal of roadblocks, let alone of outposts and settlements; forget work permits in Israel; forget freedom, of movement or otherwise; forget a Palestinian state. The occupation is here to stay.
In other words, the West and Israel is simply applying the bromide of supporting a tyrant to repress the masses. It turns out that these people aren’t really fans of democracy after all.
Nir Rosen (Angry journalist) on CNN (thanks Nir):
“NIR ROSEN, JOURNALIST: Well, it already did. We created a civil war. This is actually outrageous. Outgoing U.N. envoy to the Middle East peace process, Alvaro De Soto, himself accused the U.S. of fomenting a civil war by training, funding and arming Fatah thugs and inserting them into Gaza to destabilize the Hamas government. We never gave them a chance. They were democratically elected in an election that was widely recognized as free and fair, even by former President Jimmy Carter. And then the U.S., along with Israel, Jordan and Egypt trained these gangs and actually put them in Gaza to overthrow the Hamas government. And, of course, it’s actually backfired and Fatah was overthrown. But all you’re going to do is isolate and further radicalize Hamas. And so when you say that the U.S. is seeking to ease tensions in the Middle East, I disagree with you. These are tensions that the U.S. actually created in the Middle East.
ROBERTS: Nir, I mean what are you talking about, we have Fatah thugs being sent into the country to wage war with Hamas.
ROSEN: Well, they were trained by the U.S. General Dayton (ph), our envoy to the peace process, was responsible for a program, along with Elliot Abrams (ph), the deputy national security adviser for the Middle East, and they actually trained Fatah in the West Banks. The Jordanian special forces created the Fatah Badr brigade. The Egyptians, as well, trained Fatah in Egypt. The United Arab Emirates actually sent money and arms. And then they were allowed to enter Gaza and then began to attack Hamas. I mean this was an existential threat to a democratically elected government. What we’ve done is overthrow a government that was elected. The U.S. . . .”
Just like the US and the Saudis tried to do in Lebanon with Fatah al-Islam. And all this time they were being told how Palestinians just love to kill each other.
A fascinating interview with one of the world’s finest war correspondents, Patrick Cockburn:
What do you get when you have an Australian Murdoch newspaper trying to report on Shia attitudes towards Israel and Hizbollah?
Who in the world wrote this caption below a picture of released Paris Hilton on Murdoch’s leading Australian news site?
Hollywood observers are drawing comparisons between 22-day inmate Paris Hilton and former South African president Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in jail under the apartheid regime.
A joke. Surely?
A senior journalist at the Australian Jewish News relishes the suffering of the Palestinians (in typical cheerleading, Zionist style):
It has been conventional wisdom for these past six decades that if the Arab states had accepted the UNSCOP plan, Gaza would have become part of a Palestinian state. After this week, the tables seemed to have turned. Now Gaza is a de facto Palestinian state.
It is a state run by what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinians this week, with breathtaking hypocrisy, decried as “terrorists”. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
So pardon me, but I can’t help thinking that somehow this augurs well for Israel. Now it seems Israel really has a chance to come to terms — long-odds though they are — with the West Bank and with Fatah.
Gaza, which is now inextricably linked to Hamas, is off the radar, because Hamas won’t recognise Israel. Let them declare a Palestinian state in Gaza! But they won’t, because for Hamas, Gaza is merely a work in progress.
As they never fail to assure the world, they have their eyes on Jerusalem and on every square metre of Israel. But no recognition of Israel means no negotiations with Israel. And no negotiations means no concessions from Israel.
The Gaza experiment may yet turn into a Middle Eastern ‘Cuba-stan’ of sorts, belligerent, aggressive, a staging ground for lethal rockets. It is an impoverished territory with a basket-case infrastructure and economy. Its only asset is the view of the Mediterranean.
After all, if the Palestinians are dying or starving thanks to Israeli and Western military, financial or economic pressures, what do Jews like Peter Kohn care?
Will the US ever leave Iraq? A new documentary, All Bases are Loaded, examines the “mega-bases” with luxury amenities being constructed in the occupied nation:
The US House of Representatives have delivered to Saudi Arabia what must be the weakest example imaginable of a slap on the wrist.
While oil-rich Saudi Arabia has never been a large recipient of US aid, the Bush administration channeled a total of more than 2.5 million dollars to the kingdom in fiscal 2005 and 2006 as part of their partnership in the war on terror, congressional officials said.
Mohammed al-Zulfa of Saudi Arabia’s consultative Shura Council said the US action “represents one method out of several that the US Congress has used to pressure the Saudi government into carrying out reforms, whether in the fields of human rights or religious freedom.”
“The US Congress and other US organizations are mistaken if they think this method has any value,” he told AFP.
That should do the trick.
